An in-depth look at the Clinton LumberKings from radio broadcaster Dave Lezotte. The LumberKings are the class A Midwest League Affiliate of the Seattle Mariners.

Friday Notes (5/6)

After an 8:00 alarm, a couple of blueberry muffins from the continental breakfast and an 8:45 bus ride to O’Brien Field I’m about set for day baseball here in Peoria. The LumberKings and Chiefs close up a three-game series starting at 11:00 AM.

In case you missed it, Mariners’ 2010 first-round pick, right-hander Taijuan Walker made his first professional start in his LumberKings’ debut last night. He looked rocky at the onset, giving up four runs on six hits over the first two innings, but found command of his fastball and curveball over his final two innings to finish with a respectable line. Walker went 4.0 frames, allowed the four runs on seven hits, walked two and struck out five. He also turned a fantastic 1-6-3 double play to get himself out of what could have been an even nastier first inning.

Left-hander Edlando Seco also pitched well, striking out five of the nine he faced over 3.0 scoreless innings (I took to calling the evening “Seco De Mayo” during the effort). Right-hander Tyler Burgoon turned ina scoreless eighth.

You’ll notice no offensive highlights from last night. The Kings did score once against left-hander Eric Jokisch as Stefen Romero doubled and scored on a single by Mickey Wiswall, but way too many offensive chances slipped through their grasp again as Clinton went 1-for-7 as a club with RISP. The Chiefs aren’t exactly lighting it up offensively in this series either (with a combined 7 runs in 2 games), but they are now outscoring the LumberKings 38-7 over five meetings and are not surprisingly 5-0 as a result.

There’s not one element to single out right now about this 8-20 club, but if they’re going to avoid the sweep today, they’ll need a second-straight solid outing out of right-hander George Mieses and they’ll need to score him some runs. Mieses went 5.0 innings and won up in Wisconsin his last time out, but even then received just two runs of support. Should the Kings get to left-hander Austin Kirk early, I like their chances today.

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